TRAINER'S EYE #110 - "Travel is the Spice For Litten" ft. JCPics3

In this Pokemon interview, we are joined by JCPics3, a Pokemon Trainer from Hawaii who primarily travels to different events to experience Pokemon GO and different cultures.

JCPics3 dives into how he started playing Pokemon at a young age, playing both Kanto and Johto. He shares a conflict with a friend that temporary departed him from the Pokemon franchise for a few years, but stayed connected through the anime and eventually returning through Pokemon GO thanks to Detective Pikachu.

JCPics3 shares his experience playing Pokemon GO as a F2P player and diving into his interest in AR photography. JCPics3 shares how he connected AR photography with his playthrough of Pokemon HG/SS.

Finally, JCPics3 shares his experience having Pokemon Worlds 2024 in his native home of Hawaii! He shares how he showcased the beauty and culture of Hawaii to his friends.

Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay

Connect with JCPics3: Website | Twitter | Instagram

Transcript

JCPics: 0:00

My name is JCPix, and this is my Pokémon story.

David Hernandez: 0:44

Welcome to As the Pokeball Turns, where we interview people about their experience with Pokemon. My name is David Hernandez. Today, I'm joined by someone you may know as PumpFuckSpice, but I know him as JC. JC, welcome to the show.

JCPics: 0:58

Thanks for having me, man.

David Hernandez: 0:59

Definitely, my friend. And before we get started on this interview, I want to wish you a very special happy birthday. And what does it feel like to still be 10 years old after all this time?

JCPics: 1:10

No, I actually turned 39

David Hernandez: 1:13

Is it 39, or is it your 29th anniversary of your 10th birthday?

JCPics: 1:16

that one. Let's go with that

David Hernandez: 1:17

That

JCPics: 1:18

pull an Ash Ketchum.

David Hernandez: 1:21

Well, you know, you don't look 39, so you look, you age pretty well. And you know, we're about to talk about your experience with Pokemon. So let's start with the beginning. Like what's your first experience with the franchise? Right.

JCPics: 1:33

can't remember if it was the show or the game that came first. I want to say the show came to America first, and then the games came after. Because the games came first in Japan, and then the show came after the games, I remember being like middle school, like sixth, seventh, or eighth grade, something like that. And I remember like a friend of mine on the school bus had a Game Boy Color and was like, have you played this game? It's insanely fun. And it was, he had a copy of Red. And so I wound up somehow getting a copy of blue. I don't remember if we bought it at like the store, if I bought it off a friend, I can't remember how I got that original copy of blue, And I, I'm like old enough to remember when like mu behind the dump truck was, the schoolyard rumor. That's how you get mule. it was like ironclad, like, no, no, no. Joey's brother's sister's cousin did it. It totally worked. You know, like that was like the schoolyard, not rumor, but it was ironclad. So like, that's how long I've been attached. Like from the fruition of American's access to Pokemon is when I got hooked.

David Hernandez: 2:36

But there was so many rumors, right? You talk about the truck. And for me, I remember Pika blue.

JCPics: 2:40

I remember

David Hernandez: 2:41

eventually be Meryl. Yeah.

JCPics: 2:43

Yeah. Yeah.

David Hernandez: 2:44

So many rumors.

JCPics: 2:46

the movie, right? Cause the movie was coming out, but they released like, movie trading cards that coincided with the release of the film, but I think the cards were printed before the release of the film. So people were like calling Merrill Pika blue. I remember that.

David Hernandez: 3:00

It was crazy. And then there was people saying like, Oh, there's a peak of black, peak of green, peak of orange, like those peak of everything. Right.

JCPics: 3:05

Yeah.

David Hernandez: 3:05

Little did we know we were prophesizing for what's to come.

JCPics: 3:08

Yeah. You know, I wonder how much of that was, Rumored like those rumors came from. Remember the 97 showcase. They did that's, what was it, space, not SpaceX, but like something space showcase where they had, it was essentially like the gaming, expo before the gaming expos of today, and they had a, an original demo of silver and gold, and you can go and get that demo online somewhere, somebody like fully built it out, and finish the demo, like per everyone's memory and per the screen, the very rare, uh, 1997 screen grabs that people have from, you know, video cameras of the day. So I wonder, cause some of those old sprites never made it into the final version of silver and gold. And some of those sprites kind of looked like they could be like, a red version of Pikachu and stuff like that. So I wonder if some of those rumors spread all the way from there to America,

David Hernandez: 3:59

It's always a possibility. Cause I remember I never seen it personally, but I saw videos touching on the subject and you see these old sprites, like there was one, like, I think it's like a fish that has like a chain to it and some other like different designs, but it's fascinating to see the Pokemon that didn't eventually make it. That never really see the light of day. So it's possible that that's what started all the

JCPics: 4:17

or the ones that made it many years later. One of the original sprites for the middle evolution, for Chikorita's line was very different. Like, Bayleaf didn't exist. Like, Meganium and Chikorita existed almost in their exact final form. Slightly different sprites in the final form, but the middle form was so different.

David Hernandez: 4:35

now with Pokemon. Did you stick with it? The franchise throughout, like, did you play gold, silver, crystal Hoenn, or did you stop at some point?

JCPics: 4:41

Oh, dude, I played Red, Blue, Gold, Silver, and then I remember picking up a copy of Ruby and I had, the horizontally oriented Game Boy Advance, the white one. I had the white one specifically. And, dude, like, one of my brother's friends, was over for his birthday party or something and stole my whole shit. Like, stole the whole thing. Yeah. And then, like, the very next day on the bus ride to school, I saw that he was playing it. But I was smart enough to put my name and Sharpie on the inside of the battery compartment. And so he was like, no, this isn't yours. This is mine. I've had it the whole time. And I was like, I bet you a hundred dollars. If you open up that battery compartment, it'll say my name. And sure enough, it did. And I wound up getting it back. Um, uh, well, uh, a scuffle ensued. You

David Hernandez: 5:31

I was going to there to be fist going.

JCPics: 5:34

he was, well, he, he's no longer one of my brother's friends. He was one of those like problem. Kids in the neighborhood, you know, always stealing stuff and, all the things that come along with that sort of lifestyle. but anyways, yeah, I wound up getting it back, but for some reason that, that whole experience just like kind of really set me off from continuing to finish the game. So I never finished gen three.

David Hernandez: 5:56

Wow. And he just stopped right there

JCPics: 5:58

Yeah. And then I never, like, Kept with the games as the years went on because they eventually evolved into like the DS games came shortly after that, right? And I didn't own a DS back then. I got a DS like after college and now I play my DS like every single night. Now I, today I own every single copy of almost every single Pokemon game with the exception of like the super rare ones, but all the main series ones, I own every single one. And it's my goal to like go through and finish every single one.

David Hernandez: 6:28

so you still haven't finished those games, but you have them in as like a collection in a way

JCPics: 6:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have in the collection.

David Hernandez: 6:34

Did you come back to Pokemon through Pokemon Go

JCPics: 6:36

Well, I never lost the love for Pokemon, right? Like, even though I wasn't playing the games, per se. The iconic franchise never goes away, you know, I mentioned turtles before, like anytime a new turtles movie came out, I'd totally go see it. You know, even if it wasn't good, remember the Michael Bay ones, like they weren't good, but you'd still see it. It's like you have that love for him. Right. And every now and then like a new, Pokemon movie would come out and you'd go, Oh, all right, let's go check that out. And then I think the one that really kind of slanted into gear, For really getting back into the franchise was probably Detective Pikachu. Like, that movie, like, was just a decent film in general. And they really did the franchise well by making it live action, making it silly, and making it realistic enough to be like, Okay, I feel like this is what Pokemon could look like in the real world, right?

David Hernandez: 7:24

Well just on that on that note, like I remember when that movie came out I was terrified of what was gonna happen because you know, I remember Dragon people remember Avatar Hollywood had not really figured out how to do a Japanese game. You remember the original Super Mario live action movie back from the

JCPics: 7:41

It's terrible, but I have such an affinity for it.

David Hernandez: 7:45

right. It's a guilty

JCPics: 7:47

Yes, that's exactly the term. It's a guilty pleasure.

David Hernandez: 7:50

But that's what I was worried about with Detective Pikachu. I'm like, please get this right. At least this

JCPics: 7:55

you're not wrong. You're not wrong about Avatar, man. That one broke everybody's heart. in the new series, they've done it justice. It's pretty good.

David Hernandez: 8:04

and then the best part I love about the movie, that's the most saddest redemption, uh, redemption of the Pokemon theme song that Ryan Reynolds is singing towards the end and he's just walking the walk of shame

JCPics: 8:14

Yeah. Oh, dude, legend. And they couldn't have picked a better guy to do it, right? Somebody who would take something silly and childish and fully commit. That's why Deadpool worked so well, because the guy understood the assignment.

David Hernandez: 8:28

He knows his limits, he knows what he's supposed to do there, it works out.

JCPics: 8:32

honestly, he did nothing but pay respect to the Pokemon franchise. You know? By taking it seriously.

David Hernandez: 8:39

Yes, he

JCPics: 8:40

other actor could have easily phoned it in, but he was like, Nah, man, let's do this right.

David Hernandez: 8:45

So, you know, Detective Pikachu comes out, you watch it, what happens after that?

JCPics: 8:49

well, I can't remember which came first, if it was that movie or if it was Pokemon Go. I think Go came out before Detective Pikachu, right? Pretty sure. Yeah. So everybody remembers the summer of 2016, right? That's the closest we got to world peace, you know? and everyone

David Hernandez: 9:05

Need that on a shirt, man. I just need that on a shirt.

JCPics: 9:07

Yeah, I'm I'm sure it exists somewhere. Honestly, just check your Etsy, your local Etsy. but, uh, Yeah, everyone dropped into the game at the time. And at the time I was living in Florida I was at the end of my career of touring with bands. kind of like the last two years of it or so. And when the game came out, it was super fun to play with like my roommates and to go to like downtown Jacksonville and go and play at the waterfront. And everyone was like, Trying to get as much XP to see who could gain the levels faster, you know, that was really, really fun. And then, maybe four months later, I moved to California. And then I found a whole new group of people out there who were like this tight knit network of Pokemon players. Like, to the point where, like, they were building Slack channels. So they had like slack channels where you could like show off screenshots of like your best catches and stuff. And at the time, like lapras was super rare and everyone was like, come to long beach, you'll find lapras is like crazy. So like, I remember being up at like three or four o'clock in the morning, just waiting around for lapras is to spawn down by the pike over in long beach. So like, yeah, moving to California took the love for Pokemon and the game itself, at least Pokemon go. It's skyrocketed to another level because these were people who weren't filthy casuals. These were people who were like run and gunning every single event, every single XP they were jimming hard. I mean, that's all we really had, right? Cause we didn't have PVPs. So like the gym game was insane. And so we had private side group chats of like go and drop in this gym or this gym and no one will touch you for weeks because remember back then it was collect the button every, every, what was it? 18 hours or so. like without that community, I wouldn't have the love for this specific Pokemon game that I have today because they're all still, well, not all of them, but like, you know, a new wave of them have come and gone, right? A lot of people got burned out because they went just too hard. but I think that's because they, a lot of them got financially involved in the game, but I've always been free to play from the very, very start. The only exception. Yeah, dude. The only exception is, GoFest and the tours, the, so like they do like the Canto and the Johto and the Sinnoh and the Hoenn tours and GoFest, those are the only exceptions. Other than that, I've never spent money on the game and I, that's probably why I never got burned out on it.

David Hernandez: 11:23

if you're strictly free to play, was that just like a personal choice? Like, I don't want to put money into this game. Or is it just more of you found that it's a challenge? Like, what's the reason behind

JCPics: 11:30

You know, I have a very addictive personality and, part of my story is like the way I got the money to move from Pennsylvania to Florida to start. Touring with bands for a living was I sold my childhood Magic the Gathering collection. I'm talking 20 years of collecting playing cards for that game me and a buddy drove down to, uh, Star City Games official headquarters in Virginia and watched two guys rifle through all 50 plus binders and about 25 of those, like, 100 card boxes of commons and stuff, in about three hours and cut me a check for 8, 900 for my entire collection. And I used that money to pay off my truck and then move to Florida. And so, like, because I no longer had an outlet to, like, buy stuff, Chuck all my money into, which was that game. I was like, all right, I can see the slippery slope that something like that could become. So I was like, well, with this game, I enjoy it. And if I never crossed that line, I'll never have to worry about financially having to keep up. So it was a little bit of that. And it was also like combating, like my addictive personality and stuff like that, you know?

David Hernandez: 12:38

was it difficult at the time? You know, you're around people who are very into this game. They're putting money into it. And here you are free to play. Was there ever that temptation of like, if I just do like a dollar here, a dollar there to kind of go down as the free slope? how did you kind of come back that, you know?

JCPics: 12:52

I never. See, I never saw it that way. Yeah. I saw it as pay to fast forward, never pay to win. Right. And I'm pretty good at time management. So like I can go out and do like a six hour grind after work, you know, there was this small town, just north of the valley, in Los Angeles. And it's like a local grind spot. And it's a perfect little town where like the town square is exactly like, uh, Four minute drive in a 15 mile an hour zone. So you could either walk it or drive it. And it was this perfect little loop and dude, I'd go up there six, eight hours, and then drive the 25, 30 minutes back home to the valley and call it a day and be happy with my results, you know, with, the amount of dust collected for the evening, for whatever legendary I was trying to power up at the time or whatever. the amount of XP earned that night. Cause I was never trying to like really fast forward to level 40. It was always. I was definitely the last one in my friend group to get to 40. in fact, I might even still have the Pokemon that got me there. It was a, a spoink. I remember it being a spoink.

David Hernandez: 13:52

you caught at this

JCPics: 13:52

Yeah. The Pokemon I caught that got me the XP to, to bounce, to boing into level 40 was

David Hernandez: 13:59

literally bounced, it sprung you into level 40.

JCPics: 14:03

got me there. but like, as far as a free to play player, I was keeping up with people who played to fast forward. So it always set me apart from filthy casuals. But kept me under all the hardcores, right? I hear it as I do still have it. Uh, so I got level 40 in Santa Barbara, California on Christmas Eve 2017. There you go.

David Hernandez: 14:24

Wow. Is the Christmas present right

JCPics: 14:26

Yep. So what is that? A year and five months into the game, right? To level 40?

David Hernandez: 14:32

pretty good to get a level 40. Yeah, especially as a free to play

JCPics: 14:34

Well, that, that tells you how hard I was grinding, right? cause I was keeping up with everybody else paying a fast forward. when I got to LA, All of my like local friends in all of that community, almost every single one of them had already been 40 for months. Like they got it within like nine months, six months, eight months, you know, and here I am double that amount of time and still ahead of the curve on a lot of the people that I play with today. You know,

David Hernandez: 14:58

just to get some context. So I got to level 40 I think that same December cuz I think that's when the Hoenn trio came out in

JCPics: 15:04

that sounds about right. That sounds about

David Hernandez: 15:06

So and I was paying to try to just get to 40 so that just goes to show how hard I'm not the most hardcore Player give me don't get me wrong But that goes to show how dedicated you were to this game to do it free to play which I applaud that's

JCPics: 15:19

Well, I mean, you got to remember too, is I was fortunate enough to live in a city At the time was one of the best that at least in America, we knew, right. I had access to Santa Monica pier, which was only like 20 minutes away from where I lived in the Valley without traffic, which was like Disney world of places in America to play this game with the exception of what pier, what is it? Pier 39 in San Francisco. And then what's the one in Chicago.

David Hernandez: 15:46

That that walk. It's that um,

JCPics: 15:48

It's like pier.

David Hernandez: 15:49

Navy

JCPics: 15:50

Baby chair. Yeah. Yeah. So I think having access. that level of a grind, that many poker stops, that many gyms in that area at that time is certainly what helped propel. I was fortunate to live in that city, in addition to having the grind, you know, attitude.

David Hernandez: 16:06

Nice I remember those early days, our lake was a Dratini You could literally drive around that lake, farm Dratini and Magikarp, I believe, to an extent, and you would get Gyarados, teams of Gyarados, teams of But then on the flip side, the parking lot you mentioned, was West Dallas. Dragon Knights always spawned there. I don't know what it was, but just that location in West Dallas, they spawned in a little like construction areas, kind of, you know, manufacturing kind of places.

JCPics: 16:33

Yeah. Kind of like big, big warehouse areas. Yeah.

David Hernandez: 16:36

There you go. Warehouse

JCPics: 16:37

Yeah. We had a few of those. Quite a few districts like that in Los Angeles, especially in the valley, because there's way more room for it. there's a city called Northridge and it's a big like business park. And there was a whole bunch of stuff that would spawn just like that up there because like, like you said, just giant warehouses. It's like, it's where a lot of like, back lots are per se, but it is where. I know just from living in the area, it's, an area where those, a lot of those warehouses are used, for production for things like, Universal Studios rides, Disneyland rides, you know, and any other big theme park rides. anything that required a build, a paint or something like that, we're almost always built in warehouses in that area. Sometimes it was in Burbank, sometimes it was in Northridge. It depended on the workflow, the size, all that stuff. So, that's all that's really in that area, is just a bunch of artists working on huge, factory size, creations for theme parks inside those giant buildings. You know, so there's nothing go there's no, like, neighborhood or anything like that, you know. So we'd just be driving around looking for Dragonites in, in giant empty warehouses and, and all these fences and I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I didn't hop a fence or two to try and go catch hundos and things like that.

David Hernandez: 17:49

Hey, you haven't played Pokemon Go until you've hopped a

JCPics: 17:51

Oh dude, I've like torn a pair of jeans hopping fences for, I think for Gen 2 if I remember correctly. It might have been like my first Chikorita. I, I jumped a fence to go over one of the bus lines.

David Hernandez: 18:03

You jumped it for a Chikorita. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm so hard. I love I love Chikorita. My favorite Johto starters. That's why I was like, Oh my gosh, went to such great extents.

JCPics: 18:11

Yeah, Johto's, it's my favorite gen, man. I've always loved Johto. And everybody knows that SoulSilver and HeartGold are the best remakes of all time in any Pokemon game. They'll never be beat because they did everything right in those games. I love Gen 2, man. It's always been my favorite. And Chigurh, I was, every single starter I've ever had for every Pokemon game was always the grass starter, and there's only one exception to that rule.

David Hernandez: 18:34

What's the exception?

JCPics: 18:35

Litten.

David Hernandez: 18:36

What about Lynn makes it the exception out of everything else? Cause I think that one was Rowlett, I believe.

JCPics: 18:41

Yeah, but Redemption, right? Because for Arceus, Rowlet was a pick, so I got to pick Rowlet after all. But I didn't know that picking Litten. I fell in love with Litten because of the episode in Sun and Moon.

David Hernandez: 18:51

Hmm.

JCPics: 18:52

entire Dude, like, his whole story arc is insanely heart throbbing, man. Like, it's just really Tugs at the heartstrings. he's a stray cat in Alola. And he does his best to kind of get by by Being coy and stealing things, stealing food, whatever, just kind of doing stray cat things, right? The first episode we really really truly meet him, he steals a sandwich from Ash, which I always thought was hilarious because he did not care about the protagonist. He was like, I don't care who you are. I'm eating your sandwich. Gimme! So he steals them, gives him a nice little scratch, and then he runs off with his sandwich. So Ash, of course, never gives anything up. And he spends the rest of the episode trying to hunt down this Lytton just to get his stupid sandwich back. And Lytton goofed by accidentally leading him to his lair, right, where, where he's been staying. And it's like this old abandoned house that looks like something straight out of a Studio Ghibli film, right? If you've ever seen like Totoro or something like that, dude, it straight up looks like something out of that, right? And inside that house is an aging Stalin, which it turns out who he stole the sandwich for. So this Stalin. character is kind of like a Miyagi for Litten, who's like the karate kid. So, like, Litten goes off and takes care of this old man by feeding him sandwiches and stolen goods and things like that, because he's old, elderly, sick, and yada yada. But in return to, like, earn his keep, because Statlin wants to earn his keep, Statlin trains Litten by, like, overseeing him, learning how to do Ember, and, and things like that, you know? Ash kind of figures all this out, amongst it. And now, halfway through the episode, there's a, an Alolan Persian running around that belongs to like a ritzy ditzy character. And this Persian picks a fight with Litten. And because Litten does not back down, like, at any fight ever, He kind of gets beat up a little too much that because he wasn't leveled up high enough to beat a Persian. So he gets involved in this fight with this Persian and he just doesn't back down. I mean, we're talking like full on Rocky does not back down. Like get up, rock. You can do it. That whole vibe is happening the whole episode. Right. And Ash stumbles upon the fight, of course, and he tries to help Litten, and of course Litten's like, No way, dude, and scratches the crap out of Ash, and he's just like, Get away from me, I can handle my own fight. And so while Ash is trying to get involved and distracts the Persian, Litten scampers away, you just come to realize that Litten is this character who lives and dies by his own breed, has the biggest heart, and will do anything to fight those he respects and loves. And that throughout the course of the series, eventually he allows Ash to catch him. And Litten is the only Pokemon of the three starters that, uh, Oh no, Ash has the two of the starters. He has a Rowlet then another character has, um, Popplio. The Popplio does evolve too. But, Rowlet never evolves in the series. Although you do eventually see a Decidueye fight. But Litten is the one that has a complete arc, for the start of his story. And then there's another episode, like five or six episodes later, where we find out what happens to the Stoutland and because he runs away from Ash and all this. Ash winds up helping him with that whole arc. And that's how Ash gains Litten's respect. And that's when he allows him to like, catch him. And so Litten evolves into, all his various evolutions and has this complete story arc by the end of the series. And it's just like, He's just the best character, I think, written in any Pokemon series ever.

David Hernandez: 22:15

Hey you! Yes, you with the ears! Don't go anywhere, just taking a quick ad break. We'll be right back. So eventually what comes on your Pokemon journey or Pokemon go journey is that you eventually started doing AR picks and I know that you're not as active with it nowadays, but your art was very incredible. I was telling you that before, how you combine some notable Kabuto puzzle into Pokemon go real life. And you really kind of brought those scenes of what you play in the games. To real life with the AR photos. Like what made you want to go down that road to start doing AR photography?

JCPics: 23:13

Well, the AR stuff was, photography has just been kind of in my blood for a long time. like I was telling you, a brief part of my story is I, I used to travel with a band for a living, doing photography and videography and a bunch of other stuff. so I always just kind of had that in my DNA. and it just was a natural progression to go and have some fun with photography and Pokemon, right? Cause the AR thing was just really, really fun when they started to make. the new AR mapping system, you know, whereas before it was just a stationary Pokemon, you couldn't do anything with it or whatever. The actions made it fun. I was always living in fun, dynamic places like Florida, California, and now Hawaii. it was just a really fun way to like, I don't know, immerse yourself in the game, I guess. But then that community started to grow. Like I was just doing it for me. And then, like, all these other people came out of nowhere and started, like, following my journey. and it started at first taking pictures of Pokemon I had caught or new Pokemon that were just released to the game. And then eventually at some point I decided, okay, let's try to photograph them all. What's the best way to do that? Let's do it with a story. Okay. Back to my earlier point, I want to play through all the games. Why not two ideas? So now I play through the game and in my journey, Capture AR photographs that correspond with my achievements in the playthrough of the game, which is why every picture, if you swipe to the left of it, it shows you what battle I was in or what town I was in, and I wound up completing all of Kanto, and I started on Johto, but I never finished Johto. In fact, I don't think I've posted that account in, yep, two years. I haven't played Johto

David Hernandez: 24:50

That's what I say, been a while.

JCPics: 24:52

um, but like It started to garner this own, popularity on its own. But like, dude, I just love that community, man. I can think of Ryan was one of my favorites for sure. Ken Ken, is a Japanese creator who still, he never stopped AR photography. and he's probably, in my opinion, I think he's the best they are photographer out there. just this incredible mind. Uh, in fact, I went to worlds last summer and I got a very rare chance to actually meet him while I was in Japan. And we spent like an hour and a half together, complete and total language barrier. I don't speak a lick of Japanese. He doesn't speak a lick of English, but between the two of us, we both had Google translate. We were able to communicate through words that way, but through photography, which is even more important. And we wound up creating like a couple of different photographs together and doing some fun AR stuff together. But man, I learned in that 90 minutes I spent with that insanely creative mind. I think I've learned more in that amount of time than in two years of doing it on my own, man. He just has such a fun way of taking pictures and manipulating the game. to make concepts you couldn't even think to do. He's really incredible. If you don't know who KenKen is. 10 10 follow him on Instagram and Twitter because he is easily one of the top tier and in my opinion, the best AR photographer out there. but there's, there's a bunch in that, that whole, network of people. I mean, it kind of really started to get popularity because, uh, Zoe, would do this like AR pick of the day sort of thing in her videos. And if you did this very specific hashtag, you could get a feature on her video, right? So because she got featured on Nick's channel because he was doing the, um, what was it? The, uh,

David Hernandez: 26:35

He was doing the country

JCPics: 26:36

Yeah, it

David Hernandez: 26:37

Tours of

JCPics: 26:38

creators ago or something like that Whatever it was and she was like one of the first people to submit right? and I mean if you know zoey, I've known her for years now Like she's just one of those people who is very charismatic and very caring and really really like loves to showcase other people's work. so because You Nick caught onto that. He paid it forward by boosting her channel and then she in turn paid it forward by boosting all of our creations. And really shine the light on the AR community as a whole, you know, because every single one of us at some point got a feature in her video. And then in addition to that in print or digital rather media, you could look at a kitty who does the go hub stuff for, uh, AR photography there. Now I haven't submitted anything to her in many years, but she's still to this day every month will tag me as a notable trainer to potentially submit to her articles. And I love I love that. She still continues to nag me about it because I think it's great. I think she's right. I think eventually I need to find a point in my life where I need to get it back out there and start creating these things again, because it was really, really fun and, you know, living in Hawaii now, like I have access to really beautiful scenery and I can just up my level that much more, you know, and it really want to fast forward to get to the Alola region because I can really showcase real life places that these games were based on because I live here, you know, so.

David Hernandez: 27:57

That's what I was gonna say, like you would have a perfect opportunity to play through Pokemon Sun and Moon and showcase those Unique scenarios where you basically live. It'd be great content.

JCPics: 28:06

dude, I know, but that's, uh, that's four games away. It would take a lot. It would be, I mean, Canto, Canto alone took me a year to complete

David Hernandez: 28:18

Mm

JCPics: 28:18

and Jodo. I got, I don't know, maybe 30 or so deep into Jodo.

David Hernandez: 28:23

You didn't get that far. You still got a long way to go with Johto. I'll say that much

JCPics: 28:27

you know, I could finish up Johto, but like it takes a lot, man. Like to, to map all this out here. That's why I brought out this notebook. So I'll have like a checklist of all the Pokemon that I have and have not done and are about to, right. Okay. So, there's all the sprites from Gen 2, which ones I've done, which ones I haven't. And then, in addition to that, I have like a, a whole grid, So it would be like, which Pokemon, which location, what terrain I need to shoot in. if they're going to do an attack in this picture, I need to have it set up that way and I need to know which attack, where to get the sprites for that attack from, usually Bulbapedia or a PNG. if there's going to be a trainer, I need to know what trainer I battled them in. then it's like, did I capture it in the game itself for the screen cap of the play through? And then did I capture the photo itself? So it's like a whole grid of like all this shit just to get through, just to continue this task, which is why it's been so daunting to return to it because it required so much effort to line up all these different things just to get it right for one post, know? So. That was, that's the major deterrent really is like the time to play the game and then the research it takes to line up every post because, you know, I care about doing it right instead of like phoning it in. You know what I mean?

David Hernandez: 29:45

It sounds like you're very detailed. You want to get all the details, And get those special nods that only us Pokemon fans really appreciate, even though maybe the casual person wouldn't recognize it, you know, it's mean it means a lot more to you because you want to see your best put out

JCPics: 29:57

Well, that's why I did like the Kabuto puzzle, you know, and that's that's a real,

David Hernandez: 30:02

That's one of my favorite

JCPics: 30:03

that one's, I really love that one. It's pretty good. Um, okay. So that one is, it's a real Kabuto shot, but I edited it so much. To make look like that puzzle. That was extreme. Oh, that's another challenge too, is I do all these edits on my phone. I don't pull them into my computer and do it on Photoshop.

David Hernandez: 30:21

You do it on your

JCPics: 30:22

Yeah. All of done on my phone. Yeah, man. I've got like 30 different apps that all do various different things, but every every single photo was edited on my phone too. So, so there's that space and then it's just, there's so much to keep track of. Right. So the Kabuto one, I needed like a really cool. run down building, right? Because these, these ruins of Alf, it turns out actually really exist in some form and were inspired by a real place in Japan. Um, in fact, I saw a really cool, like, um, I guess you could call it documentary, but it was like a, a big fan on YouTube, figured that out. And while he was in Japan, made it a point to go and track down these old ruins and they really exist. And he showcased it and, and where they got the inspirations for a lot of the, the unknown letters and, Gentoo, legendaries and all of that. So it's pretty cool. Like ho has this whole legend for that whole area and stuff. It's pretty rad. It's a cool story. If So I, obviously I wasn't in Japan and I hadn't been at the time. so I had to find someplace in Los Angeles where I could shoot something that looked like, An old rundown abandoned ruin, right? So I went to the abandoned Los Angeles Zoo and that's where I shot this shot.

David Hernandez: 31:29

JC, I'm gonna send you a copy of a Photoshop for you to

JCPics: 31:31

No, I have, I have it. That's not the issue, but that's also part of the is to do it all on my phone, you know? so that one was really fun. And then I also really, really loved, So I did, I did three Mew shots. One was, behind. You can't tell because I blurred it, but I found a dump truck and did the whole dump truck thing. Right. The other it's actually a screen grab from the movie, where it's just the silhouette of Mew and it's just me in the foreground, like pointing up, like, which way did he go? So it's this one. and then the third one was like, okay, caught him in the bubble. And that's obviously a reference to, uh, Pokemon Snap.

David Hernandez: 32:10

a good detail. I don't think you see the bubble too often.

JCPics: 32:13

no, but dude, like.

David Hernandez: 32:14

wow.

JCPics: 32:16

like that made it super, super fun. to do Mount Moon when I was doing Canto, I took a trip up north of Santa Barbara to this really small town called Gaviota and up in the hills there, they have these, uh, what are called wind tunnels, essentially big giant caves that are carved out, not by the sea, but by just wind because the Santa Ana winds blow up that far north and just pummeled this entire mountain range so much so that it carved out huge caverns. so when I did the, uh, Clefairy and Clefable Mount Moon stuff, these are some, those are like two of my favorites for the entire series. those were both shot in Gaviota, wind tunnels. There were some of my favorite, man. I really, really loved that to really showcase Mount Moon, man. Yeah. Especially the Clefairy too. So like you can get better detail of how deep the cave is in that one, but it's stuff like that, that attention to detail that I love that was the fun of the project, you know? So like go through and do little things like that. You know, eventually I'll get to like the red Gyarados, you know, when I get to that level in, in a gen two. So I'll have to find a lake of rage of sorts.

David Hernandez: 33:21

JC one thing that you talked about is how worlds came to Hawaii this past year. You know, you got the chances right in your backyard.

JCPics: 33:27

dude,

David Hernandez: 33:28

What is that experience like to just be able to walk to

JCPics: 33:31

okay. So I was there last summer in Japan there, eight main islands of Hawaii, but there's plenty of little tiny islands that exist offshore of all the other islands. In fact, this island has. Like at least eight off the top of my head that I can think of these small little inlets, one of which is headed toward the North shore if you're on the island drive. Uh, and it's very popular. It's actually right across the street from, a place called Kulo Ranch where they filmed a lot of like Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, King Kong, Godzilla. A bunch of movies were shot in that valley. so right across the street from that valley is, is this small park and this teeny little island off the coast. And if you know it, you know it, right. And it's called Mokali'i. the natives call it Mokali'i, which means something like dragon tail or something like that, or tip of the dragon. It has a whole story. It's a really great, great story, in local Hawaiian legend. But, uh, The average howley would call it Chinaman's hat. So people know it by Chinaman's hat because it just has that shape, right? It has the shape of a rice hat. and in the video to like the trailer for Worlds it was Pikachu on a beach and it zoomed out. And in the background was Modi and I recognized it immediately and before and in, if you go to the, like the live. Feed of everybody at worlds. You can hear me scream above everybody else seconds before. Seconds before they reveal the word Hawaii or Honolulu, whichever it was, because I recognized it like immediately. I was like, not only is it coming to Hawaii, it's definitely coming to my island because it had only been to big island before twice, I think twice or three times. but also if it does come to my island, there's only one place it could go. And that's the Hawaiian convention center, which is literally a 15 minute walk from my front door. So I was standing, it was like me. JT Valor to my right. and I think Fleece was to my left and then his brother Jack was there as well. And there might have been other people near me, but I was like losing my mind. I was like, who's staying with me? Call it right now because this is gonna be the place. I know exactly where it is. It's right down the street from mine. And then sure as their word, Jack pulled the, the trigger on that one and so did JT. And then I have a friend from Maui who's also one of the, uh, AR community members. Poke AR photographer, um, his name is Yukio, but it's a good dude. Good friend of mine who I've known like online for many years, but because we live an island apart, we never met in person. So he flew out for that. He crashed at mine as well. and it was just fun to have all the dudes here and, and walk down the street every day to go to worlds, man. It wasn't experience, uh, to have such close access and not only that, but an opportunity to showcase to, especially Jack and Yukio. Jack had never been here before, but Yukio had, to showcase parts of this island that are outside of Waikiki, you know, it's because so many people come here and they go to Waikiki and it's so touristy and whatever. It doesn't really showcase the love that you really get for this island. If you live here, you know, Waikiki is very, crowded beaches and not really like the best waves. a lot of tourists who, you know, very friendly. there's so much better stuff locally outside of that area on the island that really, really are phenomenal. So I had an opportunity to drive some of those guys around the island and show them different corners of this place that they otherwise wouldn't have gone had, had I not had that opportunity to do so, you know? So like I took a few of them on quite a few hikes on the West side. We did a trip up to the North shore. one of my favorite spots up there in a, uh, really small town has, uh, a bunch of food trucks. And my favorite is this place called the bald guy. And I was like, you, you guys don't understand. This is going to be the best meal of your life. I'm about to ruin all fish for you because nobody's going to cook it any better than this guy. You just don't

David Hernandez: 37:13

this is the best it gets.

JCPics: 37:14

Yeah. So the town is called Kahuku. And if you go in there, there's a whole bunch of like food trucks. It's kind of a known thing on this Island. And dude. Every one of them were like, I don't know how I'm ever going to beat this meal. This is fantastic. So, it was fun to go to worlds and all, but my favorite part of the entire trip was being able to showcase parts of this island that I truly fell in love with the first time I visited 10 years ago. And then finally, eventually moved here, you know, so that, that was the best part for worlds for me.

David Hernandez: 37:41

Oh, JC, one thing I want to talk about before we close the show. You know, you talked about worlds being in your backyard, but I've also known you've traveled to places. Specifically, I met you last year and your body was completely out of sync for going to, I think, two GoFests or three time zones. What makes you want to travel? to different places like that to put your body through that kind of jet lag for Pokemon Go.

JCPics: 38:02

it's, it's really, the game is the excuse, right? But the reason is really just, I I'm so like enthralled with culture, and I love like getting involved with like, local food, local entertainment, local culture of any kind. It doesn't matter what city I'm in. I'm not trying to find a McDonald's. You know what I mean? Like I'm trying to find what makes this city, this city show me all the things that the tourists don't go to, you know, show me, you know, an experience I otherwise wouldn't have any other place on the planet, you know, which is why I really love going to Japan last year. Last summer with JT because he had been there so many times and Japan had been like a bucket list item For many years for me, but I didn't even know where to begin. I didn't know how to navigate I definitely don't speak the language And I didn't know how to travel over there. I've been like all over Southeast Asia And it's pretty easy as far as like taxis go to get around, but Japan has so much more to offer. It's a much bigger island chain, you know, and you can spend hours and hours on the shinkansen and, and barely scratch the surface of all that that country has to offer. I mean, we were there for two weeks and I think we hit somewhere in the neighborhood of like maybe 17, 18 cities, something like that between all the traveling we did. was like on the hunt to try and track down all these small, uh, Pokemon parks, and he's been trying to visit them all, and we checked off, the Sandshrew one, that was really cool because we got to see the Sand Dunes, the Slowpoke Park, which was in a small neighborhood, that was pretty fun, that took a while to get to. those two were just really fun to get to them because they were such a trek to get to, we had to like stay outside of the big cities, you know, in these smaller villages, and really get like a showcase of all the stuff that I grew up watching as far as like Studio Ghibli goes, or even something like Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon. It's like these environments weren't created. They're inspired by real places in Japan. You know? And it's cool to like, see the reality of it and how that translated to either the page, the TV, the game, the cards, whatever it is, just seeing that somebody's like inspiration come to life in something that I've been a part of since childhood. I don't know that journey alone, I thought was really cool. So the Japan trip meant a lot as far as that goes, but any other city in any other state Transcribed Same kind of thing. Just trying to get involved with anything local culture, local entertainment, whatever it is. What is your city known for? I want to go do that. And then tell me the things that it may not be known for, but are your favorites, So like when I lived in Los Angeles, obviously it's known for Hollywood and all that stuff. But like, bro, I think in the five years I lived in LA, I went to downtown Hollywood, maybe five times. Maybe five And it's usually like when somebody came to visit, I want to go see the Chinese theater. Okay. Let's go down there. You know, for me, showcasing Los Angeles, it was more about food, you know? So like I knew the best taco spots. I knew the best empanada spots. I knew the best ramen spots, you know, like food is a big deal for me as far as like culture goes. Uh, so anytime I'm in a new city, that's usually my first go to is show me like, what is your city known for food wise? that I either haven't had before in that way, like, I don't know, a hot sauce or a barbecue or a burger or whatever it is, or something I've never had before, period, you know? So if you wind up in like an Asian country, I remember my first time in Singapore, I had a stingray, which was not very tasty, but tried it, you know,

David Hernandez: 41:28

Yeah, that'd be interesting.

JCPics: 41:29

first time I ever had curry in my life was in Singapore, you know, cause my guitar player had heard that I had never had it. So he's like, we're going right now. And he just set up a whole Three different kinds. It's like, this one's spicy. This one's not. And you'll be able to survive that, you know, like, you know, it's things like that, man, that traveling with music certainly planted the seed as far as the travel bug goes. But if you travel with music, it's a really easy way to see the world, but not really experience it because you're so confined to like a 10 minute walk from the venue. And then it's just load in, set up, do the show, load out. Onto the next city. You know what I mean? You very rarely get these extra hours or even extra days to go and explore a city. the one example I always pick up is like we toured through San Francisco in the like 10 year that I was with that band. I want to say about seven years or so. We went through San Francisco probably about eight or nine times. And it took six of those times to finally see the Golden Gate Bridge.

David Hernandez: 42:27

Just because you didn't have enough time to

JCPics: 42:28

no time to get there. No time there too far from the venue. You know, got to take a cab because you're not going to take the bus, you know? it's things like that. So being able to travel on my own time, my own dime and with friends for the excuse of the game just made it that much better. I mean, you've experienced me at an event, right? So like, how often was I really on my phone?

David Hernandez: 42:47

not that

JCPics: 42:47

often. often in my

David Hernandez: 42:48

you're mostly talking to

JCPics: 42:49

I'm more interested in talking to people, man. I, that's, that's my favorite thing. You know, people tell me to start a podcast all the time, but I don't have the time, man. I barely had the time to do this today, you know?

David Hernandez: 43:01

I know. Right on that note, because I'm the same way to where I try to avoid the touristy stuff because I want to experience the same thing. Like for me, I connected with food. It's a good example for me is Seattle. You know, when I went to Seattle, I was like messaging somebody who was from there, like, what are y'all known for food And he said,

JCPics: 43:19

Oh, nice.

David Hernandez: 43:19

And I'm like, really Thai food? I was like, well, I wasn't expecting that. I was like, expecting like seafood Mediterranean or something. Yeah. But no, it was some of the best Thai food I've ever had. And, you know, everybody was going to like that big burger spot or I was like, it's like, it's like the quote, unquote water burger. And I tried it. It was

JCPics: 43:35

Yeah. That sounds about right.

David Hernandez: 43:36

We got Thai food. The Thai food was amazing though. And I enjoyed it. And that's the same thing I try to do wherever a place I go to, to where I try to find something that is off the beaten

JCPics: 43:46

Yeah.

David Hernandez: 43:46

that's still, you know, Identify with the city the best I can.

JCPics: 43:49

Yeah. I think these days the only craving I have is authenticity and whatever form it decides to show itself is what I'm interested in. I just don't have any interest in anything that's inauthentic, which is probably why Los Angeles didn't work out for me.

David Hernandez: 44:03

JC, thank you for coming on the podcast. I gotta ask the last question before we close this taco stand. If somebody was gonna challenge you to a Pokemon battle, 6 on 6, what 6 Pokemon would you bring

JCPics: 44:13

Aw, dude, okay. Man, Incineroar, duh. Gotta lead Incineroar. Lugia's always been one of my favorites. certainly my favorite legendary, because I just love the backstory of how that Pokemon got created. Uh, oh my gosh. The rest are harder to do. I always liked Raikou. Raikou is a cool, easily my favorite legendary beast. A lot of these might be Gen 2.

David Hernandez: 44:39

Hey, no rules, so you can choose whichever ones you

JCPics: 44:42

Uh, let's see, three more. man. Gotta get a Mega in there, right? Aw, Mega Teetar back at Gen 2, man. Mega Teetar's dope.

David Hernandez: 44:52

All

JCPics: 44:52

Alright, so that's what? That's four. I need two more. Dude, I, I really, really love, Duskmane. I think that's such cool Pokémon design. Like, Necrozma's, that whole episode arc in the show is really, really cool. Like how it comes to be and stuff, like with the Ultra Beasts. but I always really loved Lunala. Uh, Solgaleo is more featured in the show and it's a cool Pokémon, but Lunala is just so rad. And, Duskmane, or I'm sorry, is it Dawnwings? It's Dawnwings, right? For, for,

David Hernandez: 45:23

Dawn Wings is from the Crossbow. Yeah,

JCPics: 45:25

so I just think that that combo is really cool, but I think it's more so because I like Lunala's design.

David Hernandez: 45:32

They're very beautiful design too. Yeah.

JCPics: 45:34

Yeah, I just have for bats. Yeah, Lunala's cool. All right, so that's what, four?

David Hernandez: 45:41

Five. So you got one more.

JCPics: 45:43

Oh gosh. Man, I don't know. You know what? Let's go Goldingo, because I think it's cool that he, uh, he skateboards.

David Hernandez: 45:51

All right. The Banana Man makes an appearance for the first time. I like it.

JCPics: 45:55

Yeah.

David Hernandez: 45:56

Thank you for listening to As the Pokeball Turns. Follow all my socials and join our Discord community to stay connected by clicking any of the links in the description of this episode. Tune in next time for more episodes featuring more people, more stories, and more Pokemon. Until next time.